Duke Energy CFO: Lessons from 40 years at one company
His tips for younger employees: When your job feels easy, it's probably time to expand. And don't rule out lateral moves. 'Not every move is going to be up.'
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Steve Young joined Duke Energy as a new college grad in 1980 and worked his way to CFO. Why was he ‘never tempted’ to leave?
Duke Energy Chief Financial Officer Steve Young’s resume shows a long list of job changes and promotions over his 40-year career, but there’s one thing in particular that’s remarkable about it — all 40 years have been spent at the same company.
There was a time when a 40-year tenure at a company wouldn’t be a huge deal, but consider this: The median number of years that wage and salary employees have worked for their current employer is now 4.2 years, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As you’d expect, older workers stay longer at jobs than younger ones; the median tenure for employees ages 55 to 64 was 10.1 years, compared to 2.8 years for workers ages 25 to 34.
Young moved from Duke Energy’s finance department to the rates and regulatory affairs area in the 1990s, becoming a vice president. He later served as business unit CFO for the utility company, corporate controller and chief accounting officer. Now as CFO, he oversees between 550 and 600 people.
The Ledger’s Cristina Bolling talked to Young, 62, by phone recently about his decision to stay at one company for four decades, what advice he gives to younger employees about when to stay and when to go, how he tries to hang onto his best employees, and how the pandemic has affected his team.
Comments were edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Take us back to your start at Duke Energy, then called Duke Power. How old were you when you started?
I started in the summer of 1980, and it was the first job I had out of college. I was 22. I went to (UNC) Chapel Hill, and I majored in business administration with a concentration in accounting. I got out of school and went through the interview process and I got a job offer from Duke and took that. Immediately upon graduation, I started as an entry-level financial assistant doing accounting work with hundreds of other people. I tell people the job I had before I worked at Duke was as an intramural basketball referee at Chapel Hill.
Q: Talk about staying at one company for 40 years. Did you ever consider leaving? What made you decide to stay?
I never really felt like I had to look around. I was never tempted to leave Duke. The company is great, its purpose is great — supplying energy to people safely and at low cost. The people I’ve worked with have been fabulous, and the opportunities are diverse and the company is good about looking and thinking about people’s careers. There were always interesting things going on in the company. When I started, it was building some of the first nuclear plants in the industry. Now, we’re building wind farms, solar farms, battery storage facilities. I think the company has always been innovative and that’s been attractive to employees.
Q: What advice to do you give younger professionals about when it makes sense to stay in one place like you have, and when it makes sense to switch companies?
I’ve generally said, when a job gets to be very easy for you, maybe it’s time to expand. You should interact with your manager to understand, “What are my needs for development? What are your thoughts about my needs?” Look for (lateral moves) to broaden you out. Not every move is going to be up. That’s where patience can help you. Put yourself in the best position, so when an upward opportunity is there, you’ve got a shot at it.
People ask me, “Did you have a timetable of progression and goals regarding when you would be at VP level?” I never had that. My only goal was to do the job I had to the best of my ability. That takes a bit of faith that there are people looking and understanding that you’re doing well. But I think the company has proven that they are doing that. So I didn’t feel like I needed to put a constraint on myself.
Q: Talk about the pandemic and how it’s affected your organization. Does this remind you of any other time during your tenure at Duke Energy? How has your organization had to adapt?
I have not seen a parallel to this pandemic. Most people in my area are working remotely. Now we’re trying to plan how to bring people back to work. We’ve learned a tremendous amount, and we’re not going to let this go to waste. We have learned how to work virtually very effectively; how to identify resources that might be available to be utilized in other areas. Leadership has been doing video updates, and we’ve been using technology to really interface a lot. I would sure love to walk around and talk to people the way I used to. I think the other forms of communication that we’ve put in place have worked well, but I do miss seeing people physically and talking about what’s going on in their lives.
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